Baldwin-Burns - Buzzaround

phibes · Post by **phibes** » 30 May 2011, 04:39

This is how you would wire your DC jack. If you wire it the standard way, it won't work right and it's not a surprise your battery got hot!

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/dia ... a841b3e85a

Like Alex said, you can't share the power supply with other pedals! If your using a single adapter with no daisy chainging, then your fine.

Really though, just use a battery. This circuit consumes less juice than a led indicator. As long as you remember to unplug whichever jack you have hooked up to short the battery, the battery will last a really really long time!

Alex Frias · Post by **Alex Frias** » 30 May 2011, 12:54

Sorry, that´s the corrected text:

You can not use a positive ground pedal, like the original ancient Buzzaround, sharing the same power supply with others negative ground pedals ( the modern standard for pedals ).

You will simply short the power supply this way!

timsmcm · Post by **timsmcm** » 07 Jun 2011, 03:45

can you men tell me what the least acceptable gain would be for the last transistor in a buzzaround circuit? I got several trannies but to one with the most gain according to my peak meter was almost 90hfe.

phibes · Post by **phibes** » 07 Jun 2011, 04:39

You can probably go as low as 60. I like Q3 in the 80's. Breadboard and keep trying em out and use the one that sounds best. Let your ears be the judge, not the numbers.

Alex Frias · Post by **Alex Frias** » 07 Jun 2011, 11:55

I can't agree more. Pedals, specially distortions, are made to please our ears not our scale meters!

kinski · Post by **kinski** » 01 Jul 2011, 14:26

So I built this pedal a while back using Madbeans board layout. Sounds great, but it cuts the bass too much for me. How could I get more bass happening? Thanks!

Alex Frias · Post by **Alex Frias** » 01 Jul 2011, 14:34

kinski wrote:Sounds great, but it cuts the bass too much for me. How could I get more bass happening? Thanks!

One of two: maybe you made some mistake along building it or we have a very differente perception regarding low frequencies. It is one of the most fat bottomed fuzz I saw.

kinski · Post by **kinski** » 01 Jul 2011, 14:58

hmmmm....i'll take a look.

grrrunge · Post by **grrrunge** » 11 Mar 2012, 16:55

I had nothing to do last night, so i looked around teh interwebs for some nasty fuzz, and stumbled upon this one.
It sounded cool, so i thought "what the heck" and started building a vero version, using the layout and schematic from here: http://revolutiondeux.blogspot.com/2008 ... -fuzz.html

I had everything laying around, apart from the germanium transistors, so since i just built this for kicks, i threw in 2n3906's instead - all in the 270'ish hfe area, and guess what - it's not working

I started troubleshooting, and found that the first half of the circuit works fine.
I tried tapping into the circuit between the 4u7 cap and the sustain pot, and there's sound. It's loud as hell, and slightly gated, but i like the sound of it so far.
I read mictesters comment in the buzzaround-alike thread about some transistors having too little leakage to work in the circuit, so i added a 1M resistor between the 4u7/sustain pot junction and -9V like he suggests in the buzzaround-alike schematic (https://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic ... ke#p101865), but still no sound comes through the last bit of the circuit.

With all controls at noon'ish settings i get the following readings on Q3 (PSU outputs 9,73V):
E: 0,00V
B: 0,37V
C: 0,62V

All controls at one end:
E: 0,00V
B: 0,58V
C: 0,04V

All controls at the other end:
E: 0,00V
B: 0,00V
C: 0,00V

Obviously i have no clue as to what i'm doing here, but it would be nice if someone could help me to get this thing alive

What am i missing in order to get sound going through the last bit of the circuit around Q3?

LucifersTrip · Post by **LucifersTrip** » 11 Mar 2012, 19:27

grrrunge wrote: I tried tapping into the circuit between the 4u7 cap and the sustain pot, and there's sound. It's loud as hell, and slightly gated, but i like the sound of it so far.
I read mictesters comment in the buzzaround-alike thread about some transistors having too little leakage to work in the circuit, so i added a 1M resistor between the 4u7/sustain pot junction and -9V like he suggests in the buzzaround-alike schematic (https://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic ... ke#p101865), but still no sound comes through the last bit of the circuit.

mictester used a germanium with low, but not enough leakage for Q3 and a 2.2M resistor. you have a silicon (basically no leakage) with a 1M resistor.

With all controls at noon'ish settings i get the following readings on Q3 (PSU outputs 9,73V):
E: 0,00V
B: 0,37V
C: 0,62V

I would start troubleshooting here. the circuit is designed for ge's so again the resistors are for that. try adjusting resistors to get rid of the gating. with ge, I got ~ 5v on the collector. note: you don't need gains of even 270 here since it's a darlington formation.

All controls at one end:
E: 0,00V
B: 0,58V
C: 0,04V

C should be higher than B. again, I suggest get the 1st stage better, then trying a larger resistor (2.2M+), like what mictester suggested.

good luck

grrrunge · Post by **grrrunge** » 11 Mar 2012, 20:41

LucifersTrip wrote:
grrrunge wrote: I tried tapping into the circuit between the 4u7 cap and the sustain pot, and there's sound. It's loud as hell, and slightly gated, but i like the sound of it so far.
I read mictesters comment in the buzzaround-alike thread about some transistors having too little leakage to work in the circuit, so i added a 1M resistor between the 4u7/sustain pot junction and -9V like he suggests in the buzzaround-alike schematic (https://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic ... ke#p101865), but still no sound comes through the last bit of the circuit.
mictester used a germanium with low, but not enough leakage for Q3 and a 2.2M resistor. you have a silicon (basically no leakage) with a 1M resistor.

Yes? Should the resistor be of even smaller value to simulate more leakage - like 470K?
In my sense of logic a bigger value like 2M2 would result in less flow between the two points and thereby simulate lower leakage. Am i way off here?

LucifersTrip wrote:
grrrunge wrote: With all controls at noon'ish settings i get the following readings on Q3 (PSU outputs 9,73V):
E: 0,00V
B: 0,37V
C: 0,62V
I would start troubleshooting here. the circuit is designed for ge's so again the resistors are for that. try adjusting resistors to get rid of the gating. with ge, I got ~ 5v on the collector.

Which resistor would i adjust to get the voltage around 1/2 V+ on Q3 then?

I suppose that for Q1 and Q2 it's the 10K between -9V and the collectors of Q1 and Q2 right?

LucifersTrip wrote:note: you don't need gains of even 270 here since it's a darlington formation.

Q1 and Q2 forms the darlington pair, right? The measurements are from Q3

at 9,73V Q1 reads:
C: 6,96V
B: 1,55V
E: 1,10V

at 9,73V Q2 reads:
C: 6,96V
B: 1,10V
E: 0,51V

The only pnp's i have at the moment are 2n3906, and out of the first 10 i measured, the hfe was between 270 and 280, so i just took three of those, and threw in the circuit. Remember this started out being a saturday evening experiment, but right now it's becoming more of an obsession

LucifersTrip wrote:
grrrunge wrote: All controls at one end:
E: 0,00V
B: 0,58V
C: 0,04V
C should be higher than B. again, I suggest get the 1st stage better, then trying a larger resistor (2.2M+), like what mictester suggested.

These are readings from Q3. At this point the signal disappears after entering the base on Q3.
I have no idea whether the pots are wired the right way in or backwards, which is why i simply wrote "controls at one end" and "controls at the other end"

LucifersTrip wrote:good luck

Thanks mate! I hope you and/or someone else is going to be patient with a knowledge-hungry fuzz-n00b here

LucifersTrip · Post by **LucifersTrip** » 13 Mar 2012, 04:37

grrrunge wrote: Yes? Should the resistor be of even smaller value to simulate more leakage - like 470K?
In my sense of logic a bigger value like 2M2 would result in less flow between the two points and thereby simulate lower leakage. Am i way off here?

yes, I believe you are right. the larger the resistor for larger leakage...but I think you might be too far off your mark (4.5v) to compensate with a resistor if you leave the rest of the circuit the way it is. though, for the germanium version, mine sounded best with Q3C voltage significantly lower.

Which resistor would i adjust to get the voltage around 1/2 V+ on Q3 then?

it would probably just be that additional one you just added from the base, though, of course you can try anything (possibly even an additional resistor from the collector?). though, of course using a ge would be the easiest..haha

I suppose that for Q1 and Q2 it's the 10K between -9V and the collectors of Q1 and Q2 right?

...or the resistors to ground

Q1 and Q2 forms the darlington pair, right?

right

I have no idea whether the pots are wired the right way in or backwards, which is why i simply wrote "controls at one end" and "controls at the other end"

when I built mine, I watched youtube vids to see how the controls interacted
start 1:15:

if you increase the timbre (I believe bass response) the volume jacks up. I solved that problem by altering the last 10K to ground. It gave me a much smoother timbre sweep with much less change in volume

the hardest part of this pedal was choosing Q3. Even if you make this all ge, Q1/Q2 are total cake to choose. you just pick a couple low leakers (those Russian ones are great). I went thru a bunch before I had the right Q3. I knew I had the right one since the fuzz was better and the sustain sweep was near perfect.

beedotman · Post by **beedotman** » 25 Mar 2012, 19:51

Here's vero for buzzaround that should fit 125B or 1590B enclosure.
Trannies chould be mounted on sockets.
Enjoy!

sinner · Post by **sinner** » 25 Mar 2012, 20:32

...and replica

beedotman · Post by **beedotman** » 05 Apr 2012, 09:25

Nothing new... but I have drawn similar layout for small box Elka Dizz Tone circuit and it was quite easy to convert to Buzzaround specs - so here it is.

Should fit 125B enclosure.

Post by **digi2t** » 20 Nov 2013, 18:19

Alrighty then... I decided to stick a fork in this sucker... FINALLY!!! I've had the bag of parts sitting around for long enough me thinks.

I decided to stay true to the Russian angle, finally settling upon two MP16B's for Q1 and Q2, with a nice phat GT402B in the Q3 slot. As an added bonus, I did a bit of free-cycling, using the majority of the components (including the shielded wire) from a Farfisa organ that I gutted last year. I could have used the 1N695 diode that was in the organ too, but I elected to run with a 1N450 Sylvania instead. Doesn't make any diff audio-wise, but it does look like it can out of some 1960's nuclear power plant. Naturally, I had to redo the vero, since these parts were not exactly, ahem... small. Also, since I was removing them from another board, the lead length was very limited, so I had to work around that as well. In the end, it wasn't anything that couldn't be handled with a digital vernier, and everything fit nicely into the BB enclosure.

Tone section resistor is 39K. Couldn't find a 43K on the Farfisa boards, and I was adamant to use what was in there.

Measured with a Peak DCA55 meter, room temperature (20 deg. C) the transistor gains/leakage re as follows;
Q1 - 61 / 0.04mA
Q2 - 64 / 0.06mA
Q3 - 112 / 0.12mA

My final voltages are as follows. Guitar plugged in, with guitars volume at zero, pedal plugged into the amp, all pedal controls at maximum;

Supply voltage = 9.08v

Q1
E - 1.472v
B - 1.535v
C - 4.90v

Q2
E - 1.366v
B - 1.472v
C - 4.90v

Q3
E - 0.0mV
B - 26.3mV
C - 2.265v

Here's the bigger vero;

Pics of the guts;

External. Not crazy about the knobs, but I'll find something funky later;

And of course, the customary Hen's Tooth Café video. Complete with halo backlight :icon_lol:

itkindaworks · Post by **itkindaworks** » 22 Nov 2013, 03:54

^^^That looks awesome!

D-Day · Post by **D-Day** » 22 Nov 2013, 06:47

Yeah, your vero layouts and guts are always beautiful. This one exceptionally so!

D-Day · Post by **D-Day** » 22 Nov 2013, 06:54

Whoah holy shit chainsaw accident! Dang man, harsh toke. I'm glad you still have all your digits.

Post by **digi2t** » 22 Nov 2013, 13:52

D-Day wrote:Whoah holy shit chainsaw accident! Dang man, harsh toke. I'm glad you still have all your digits.

You and me both brother! Chords are OK right now, but soloing is a bitch. Going to be at least another two weeks before it's passable.

Baldwin-Burns - Buzzaround [schematic]